Tennis and opera

On Friday I watched Wozniak play Wozniacki. I am not making this up. From their names you can tell that both of these players on the women's tennis circuit are of Polish origin, but while Alexandra Wozniak hails from Canada, Caroline Wozniacki is from Denmark. They are both young, blonde girls, who could be sisters, almost indistinguishable. In order to distinguish them they were listed as "A. Woz" and "C. Woz," so you have to remember their first names.
They have played each other twice before and on both occasions Caroline Wozniacki (the Danish one) has won. She is now listed no. 9 in the world at the age of 18. This time too, after losing the first set to Wozniak (listed at 25), she fought back and won the semi-final of the Eastbourne grass court championship, which is a pre-Wimbledon warm-up event. Then she went on to beat Virginie Razzano of France in the Final. Although Razzano seemed the better player, with more winning shots than Wozniacki, she also had a lot of unforced errors, allowing Wozniacki to win. In achieving this win, Wozniacki defeated several well known players and certainly deserved to receive the huge trophy. She has a nice smile and a pleasant attitude and should be a factor in Wimbledon.
In the men's tournament, the first one held at Eastbourne, Dmitri Tursanov, a Russian from California, defeated Frank Dancevic, a Canadian and a "qualifier" the lowest level of competitor. That he managed to get to the final by defeating several seeded players was a big surprise, to him as well as everybody else.
Having watched the Queen's Club tournament the previous week, won by British hopeful Andy Murray now seeded incredibly at no. 3, I am all set for Wimbledon. Since Nadal has dropped out of Wimbledon because of knee trouble, one of the few times that the champion has not defended his title, that leaves things a bit clearer for Murray. Wimbledon lasts for two weeks, so don't bother me with anything until its over.
Just in case you get the impression that all I do is sit on my tuches and watch the TV, Sat night we went to our last subscription concert of the Herzliya Chamber Orchestra, and it was a concert of great arias from the opera, with four amazing singers. Normally I'm not too fond of opera, but these voices were, as we say in Hebrew "mamash" (the real thing). Three of them, the mezzo (Edna Prochik), the baritone (Noah Breger) and the tenor (Guy Mannheim) were born in Israel, and the soprano (Larissa Tetuev) was from Russia. The soprano was not "screechy" and when she sang the lament from Boito's Mefistofele she showed great voice control, going down as well as up. And most of the pieces they sang, as well as being Grand Opera, were not hackneyed or overly popular. And the orchestra played exceptionally well, all in all a great concert.
Sun night we went by bus to Ra'anana with a group from AACI to see a performance of "Oklahoma," a classic not to be missed, given in English by an amateur group called Encore Productions. This was an amazingly good show, the lead singer who played Curly was Kendall Pinkney, an American Black from Mesquite, Texas, who studies at Oberlin College in Ohio and who is spending a year abroad at the International School in Hebrew University. His voice was wonderful, and he played the part exceptionally well, and Laury was played by Aviella Trapido, also with an excellent voice, who has appeared in several previous productions. I must say that it was an example in the best traditions of Israeli multi-culturalism. Everyone enjoyed this performance very much, it was pure entertainment hearing the well-known songs sung with such verve and enthusiasm.
Then after that back to the TV for Wimbledon (it's a hard life....).